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GM. This is Needs to Exist (aka NTE), delivering you a startup idea that puts your preferences in charge so brands adapt to you.

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Here’s what we’ve got for you today.

• Daily Idea - Preferences, Powered Everywhere.

• Repetition

Own your preferences. Flip the script.

The One Liner

Make brands fight to serve you better.

The 140 character tweet (or X) version

Imagine giving your preferences once and every hotel, airline, or restaurant you touch adapts to you instantly. That’s what this platform does.

The Longer Story Version

The Problem
We’ve got personalization all wrong.

Every time you check into a hotel, fly with an airline, or dine out… you’re starting from zero. New profile. New preferences. New "loyalty" number you’ll forget.

You’re forced to fit into their system, not the other way around.
Want a firm pillow? Good luck. Vegan meals? Hope the checkbox worked. Hate middle seats? Get ready to argue at the gate again.

It’s like living on Groundhog Day, but for customer service.

Meanwhile, brands are desperate for your loyalty. They’ll spend $200 to get you to book once. But they don’t even know how to treat you once you’re in the door.

It’s a broken loop.

The Solution
What if you could just say what you want once and the world adjusted?

You create a universal preference profile.
Hotels. Airlines. Restaurants. Retailers. All plugged in.
You like aisle seats, extra spicy food, minimalist design, late checkouts? Great. Done once. Applied everywhere.

The platform acts like your API for life preferences.
You control what’s shared, when, and with who.
Brands get signal. You get VIP treatment—without lifting a finger.

It flips the script: brands have to compete to serve you better.

How We’d Build It

Stage 1 — MVP for Nerds Who Travel Too Much

• Use Tally.so or Typeform for initial preference intake.

• Store data securely with Supabase.

• Offer PDF exports so users can manually email preferences to hotels/restaurants.

• Target early adopters: frequent flyers, boutique hotel lovers, and travel influencers.

• Launch on Product Hunt and in communities like Travel Massive or Everywhereist’s Substack.

Stage 2 — Smart Matching + First Integrations

• Auto-generate brand-specific preference formats via LangChain + GPT-4.

• Build a browser extension that shows "preference-ready" businesses.

• Partner with 5–10 boutique hotels or luxury services to beta test full integrations.

• Add webhook infrastructure via Hookdeck to share data with partner brands securely in real-time.

• Start DTC-focused GTM via newsletters (The Trip, Morning Brew’s Travel Stack, etc.).

Stage 3 — The Customer OS for Premium Experiences

• Build an embeddable SDK for brands to integrate preference sync in checkout or onboarding flows.

• Integrate with loyalty programs using tools like Merge.dev or Sequin for unified APIs.

• Add privacy and permission layers via Privy.io or self-hosted PlexTrac.

• GTM: B2B2C model with luxury brands, then mass adoption through embedded travel booking partners (e.g., Hopper, Amex Travel).

Why It Needs to Exist
Because personalization shouldn’t mean starting over every damn time.

This puts the power back in the user’s hands. Brands still get the data they crave but only if they prove they’ll use it well. It’s opt-in intimacy.

And when preferences become portable, you stop being just another customer and start being the kind of person brands fight to impress.

It’s not for everyone. Just the people who hate being treated like everyone.

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Stop Repeating Yourself. Forever.
Startups that eliminate friction from recurring human interactions.

There’s a category of pain in life that we all feel but never fully name: the stuff we do over and over and over again that makes us feel like we’re in a human version of a CAPTCHA test.

• “Hi, yes, I’ve been here before.”

• “No, I don’t want the paper receipt.”

• “Actually, it’s pronounced Bron. Like ‘Shawn.’”

• “Please stop emailing me about crypto.”

These aren’t just minor annoyances. They’re signals. Repetition = friction. And friction = startup opportunity.

The biggest companies in the world kill friction:

• Amazon: 1-click checkout

• Uber: no need to explain where you're going

• Spotify: remembers what you like, queues it up automatically

But there’s still so much left that sucks. Most of the world still treats you like a first-time visitor—even when you’re a regular.

So here’s the prompt: What are people still repeating that software should remember or automate?

Repetition = Opportunity

Let’s break it into buckets where startup gold might live:

🗣️ Communication Repeats
Every time you onboard a freelancer, go on a date, talk to customer support, or leave feedback—you’re saying the same things.

Startup ideas:

• A “personal context API” you can send to new people: pronouns, timezone, calendar link, preferred tools, favorite snacks.

• AI that listens to all your Zoom calls and creates auto-summaries of “here’s what this person typically asks” or “common onboarding friction.”

• Email plug-in that auto-answers FAQs based on your past replies.

Tools to explore:

• Rewind.ai: captures everything you see/hear on your device

• Superhuman Snippets: create and trigger canned email responses

• Heyday: context memory for researchers (could be used to power onboarding or dating profile AIs)

🧾 Admin Repeats
You keep filling out the same forms, writing the same bios, uploading the same profile picture on every site like it’s 2008.

Startup ideas:

• A cross-platform “admin vault” that stores and auto-fills bios, headshots, public links, and form responses

• Middleware that auto-syncs your info across platforms (Calendly ↔ LinkedIn ↔ AngelList ↔ Shopify, etc.)

• AI-powered autofill for annoying forms that aren’t browser-friendly (PDFs, portals, legacy gov sites)

Tools to explore:

• Tally.so + Webhooks: lightweight forms with API access

• Fillout.com: smarter form automation

• Automa: browser automation without coding

🧠 Preference Repeats
"Do you have any dietary restrictions?" — Yes. Still.
You’re always re-explaining what you want, how you like it, or what your name is.

Startup ideas:

• A universal preferences layer (not the one we talked about earlier 😉)

• A phone-based “Context QR” that gives businesses your relevant info when scanned (allergies, seat preference, etc.)

• AI assistant that pre-fills service instructions based on your history

Tools to explore:

• Bardeen: automates manual browser tasks with AI

• Glide: build mobile apps from spreadsheets—could be your portable preferences app

• Clay.earth: smart contact management—could be flipped for smart self context

💡 The Real Game

If you’re building a startup, don’t look for ideas that sound cool. Look for patterns that suck.

And repetition? It’s the loudest suck-signal in the system.

So next time you say “ugh, not this again,” stop and ask:

Why the hell am I still doing this manually?

The answer might just be your next startup.

One More Meme